THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Eventually it appeared within reach, and when Chad put his hand its mouth and started to lift it up to
drop into the measuring sling, we could see it obviously wasn't a bad fish. It was at that point however
that it suddenly burst into life, breaking free from his grip and making off down river at a rapid rate of
knots.
In the end we had to slip the anchor
and take off after it. Still not quite the
fight I had expected, but now knowing
that unless disaster struck, I was
finally going to crack the ton, and by
some considerable margin if the hook
hold held. I just wanted it in the boat.
Some twenty or so minutes later it was
back within lifting range, and this time
Chad's grip of its bottom lip and
pectoral fin held firm. One good heave
and it was in the sling. A quick check
with the electronic tag detector
showed it had been caught before.
Then for the moment of truth with the
tape measure.
Phill Williams, small Sturgeon
It was obviously bigger than Dawns fish, but how much bigger?. Well, according to the formula, at one
hundred and fifty five pounds, it was almost half as big again. What's more, the rain held off throughout
the entire encounter for the video camera.
By this stage our sturgeon total for the three days was running somewhere in the low twenties, which
meant that we could theoretically expect to see another three figure fish at any time, and not long after,
another run did come on the same squaw fish bait.
Unfortunately, no sooner had it started than this fish, which was another biggie, was tail walking on the
surface trying to eject the bait, which it did with ease.
So my ton turned out to be a last gasp success, as no other fish at all were boated. The only remaining
bites came from the mossies as we made our dash from the boat back to the car, relieved and satisfied
that all objectives had finally been achieved.
CANARY ISLANDS - EL HIERRO
El Hierro is probably the least known, smallest, and most isolated of the Canary Islands. Certainly
amongst English people. A dry, mountainous, bleak volcanic tip rising straight up from the ocean floor
out on the western edge of the island group, with very little English spoken there at all.
It reminded me of the kind of step back in time we do here in the UK when we visit small isolated
villages which have not so much failed to adapt, but have refused to adapt to the twenty first century.
The kind of place you visit for a trip back to your roots.
Dave Devine and I were over there specifically to fish for six gilled sharks, which are a large deep water
bottom feeding species. The actual fishing for these is covered in full detail in part 3 where I target a
fish of over a thousand pounds, so I'm not going to re-cover that part of the story here. But some degree
of overlap between that account and this one is inevitable.
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